


Unadulterated Loathing

by fairmanor



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Basically a competition of the worst gifts ever, But they don't really lets be honest, Christmas, Christmas Presents, Frenemies, Future Fic, M/M, Other, Patrick and Ronnie Feud, Patrick and Ronnie Hate Each Other, Pranks, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27748900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor
Summary: Twyla hosts her annual community-wide Secret Santa exchange. Patrick and Ronnie draw each other.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer & Ronnie, Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 46
Kudos: 127
Collections: Schitt's Creek: Frozen Over (2020)





	Unadulterated Loathing

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCFrozenOver2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**   
> Twyla hosts her annual community-wide Secret Santa exchange. Patrick and Ronnie draw each other.

When they arrive at the Café, Patrick is already in a bad mood. Before they’d set off, he and David had been bickering about whether they really needed to keep driving their car into town or whether they could both do with some exercise and start making the fifteen-minute trip every day, which wasn’t really so unreasonable. David had been all for staying in the car, “especially in this weather, Patrick,” but that was mainly because he wanted to play _Driving Home for Christmas_ on the way there. (“We’re not even driving home, though. And it's still November.” “Ugh, the sentiment is there, Patrick!”)

Eventually, Patrick won and they ended up walking, but he now realises that was worse because it started hailing bitterly when they were halfway there. 

So a month from Christmas, he and David turn up to Schitt’s Creek’s annual Secret Santa Exchange freezing cold, soaking wet and trying not to bite each other’s heads off in front of their neighbours.

“I just need to hear you say it. Just once, and I’ll let it go,” David says as they shed themselves of their dripping hats and coats on the café’s hooks.

“No.”

“Your hot chocolate is on the line here, Patrick,” David says dangerously.

And Patrick remembers that he didn’t bring any money, so he rolls his eyes and concedes.

“Fine. You were right, I was wrong, I know that now and I am bearing witness to my terrible mistakes,” Patrick recites flatly.

David smirks and pats him on the head. “Good. Want any cream on your hot chocolate?”

Patrick tries to maintain the argument, but both of them are cracking now. Biting down hard on his smile, he shoots David another playful glare.

“Do what you must, I’m done talking to you now.”

“Divorce,” David says sweetly as he walks away. And as it does even when David is talking about the gas bill, Patrick’s heart grows three sizes. Doesn’t stop him being soaking wet and having to own up to the fact that he’s wrong.

What feels like the entire town is stuffed in the small room. The middle tables have been put away and a circle of chairs set down in their place. In the middle sits a bucket with the names of everyone who wanted to get involved on a slip of paper.

Not long after David has brought their hot chocolates from the counter and they’ve both had a turn drying themselves by the space heater in the corner of the Café, Twyla claps her hands to get everyone’s attention.

“Good evening, everyone! It’s so nice to see so many of you here with us tonight. Can I ask everyone to sit down on a chair – or stay in your booths – and we can get started!”

There are a few claps and whistles here and there, but it calms down pretty quickly. David leans over and mutters, “Time for round one,” which makes Patrick laugh. They’ve been doing the annual Secret Santa for the past five years since they got married, and every year without fail they have to restart the process several times.

One by one, everyone comes up to collect their slip of paper, and Twyla commands everyone’s attention again once they’ve all sat back down.

“Okay, on the count of three, you know what to do. One…two…three!”

Everyone opens their papers in unison.

_Ronnie Lee_

Patrick’s stomach drops. Oh, God.

No.

Why –

Suddenly, Ray shrieks. “Ah! I got Jocelyn! This is so exciting!”

The room goes silent. Twyla sighs.

“Put them back in again, everyone,” she says tiredly.

The next attempt comes and goes even more slowly and tedious than the first.

“Yeah, what happens if you get yourself?” David says, pinching his piece of paper at the very edge.

“Wait, you have yourself, Dave? But _I_ got your name,” Roland chimes in.

“Why is my name in there twice –”

“Twyla, can I pick someone else –”

And so it goes.

But no matter how many mishaps they have, Patrick opens up the slip of paper and _every single time_ Ronnie’s name is on there. He chances a glance up at her, but her face is characteristically unreadable. If not slightly moodier.

Patrick sits back in his chair, watching the cogs turn in David’s head turn as he looks at whatever name is on his paper. David raises his eyebrows at Patrick in the way Patrick has learned means “we’re telling each other who we got as soon as we’re home”.

When the atmosphere in the café turns social and people start to refill their drinks, David and Patrick say a brief goodnight and duck out early. Thankfully, Roland offers to give them a lift home on his way out of town, so there’s that. Small mercies, Patrick supposes.

Once they’re inside, David sighs loudly and shoves their wet coats on top of the furnace in the utility room.

“Hang on, wait a second. Wait,” David says. He grabs Patrick by the shoulders and studies his face for a long time. For a second, Patrick thinks he’s going to apologise for something or break some bad news, but then –

“It’s Ronnie, isn’t it?”

Patrick glares harder. “Ugh…how did you guess,” he says.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve looked like you wanted to firebomb the Café ever since you opened your paper.”

“It was every single _time,_ David!” Patrick whines, not even caring how childish he sounds as he trails after David into the kitchen. He would try and grab onto his husband's sweater for full dramatic effect, but he knows better by now. They get out some mugs and pans and begin to work in tandem on the recipe that Marcy gave them for brandy caramel hot chocolate. While Twyla's cocoa was okay, nothing beats making it together in your own kitchen with your husband. “We must have started over about five times, and every single time Ronnie’s name was there.”

David tries to look sympathetic, but Patrick can see him biting down furiously on a grin. He doesn’t blame him.

“You can laugh, you know.”

“Oh, there is nothing funny here,” David says solemnly, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards.

“Fine, who did you get, then?” Patrick asks. They finish making their hot chocolate and sit down on the couch, David shaking up a bottle of whipped cream and squirting a generous helping on top of each of their mugs.

“Jake,” he says smugly. Patrick nearly chokes on his first sip.

“Jake?! That’s _easy._ I don’t think I’ve ever seen him express more than ten different opinions in my entire life. He’s easily impressed.”

“Do you think it’d be a bit too on the nose to get him a bottle of whiskey? An _actual_ one,” David adds after noting Patrick’s raised eyebrows.

“Nah, I think he’d take it as a sign.”

Patrick stares into the fire, thinking silently until David nudges him with his sock.

“Man, I wanna win this,” Patrick says. He can feel his face set in resolve.

David gives him a pointed look. “If you think I’m going to let you turn this into a rivalry, you’ve got another think coming, Mr. Rose. You can’t _win_ Secret Santa.”

“You can if you have Ronnie – oh God, what if she’s got me as well?”

David rolls his eyes. “Come on, that’s impossible. I think the chances of that are probably one in –”

****

“Yep, she’s got you.”

Patrick is still staring at the door of the Apothecary when David’s voice floats in through the backroom.

“Wh– how? What, how do you know that?”

David comes up behind Patrick, the cardboard box of delicate white tinsel rustling in his arms. He puts it down on the counter and wraps his arms around his husband’s shoulders.

“I may have learned a bit more than I let on when you tried to teach me how to spreadsheet last year,” David says. “I’m not keen on all the money handling stuff, but I have been keeping a little document of all your past, present and predicted future spats with Ronnie.”

“What –”

“According to the current trajectory, which is nearing the bottom of a cooling-down period after the pool incident in summer, she has no reason to be suddenly mad at you right now. What would possibly be making her mad other than getting your name for Secret Santa and suspecting that you have her as well?”

Patrick narrowed his eyes at the door. Ronnie had just left with half the store’s cheese under her arms, and Patrick would have been grateful for the purchase if she hadn’t been so difficult with him at the till.

“I repeat what I said last night,” Patrick says, “I wanna win this.”

“Okay, but can you win it after we put up the tinsel and frosted pine leaves? The store isn't gonna decorate itself.”

Patrick concedes, resigning himself to the afternoon tasks. He tries to put it out of his mind for the rest of the working day, which he immediately regrets when he gets home. It would have been worth David's teasing if he'd let himself sulk and think about it a bit more - that way, Ronnie's little token wouldn't have taken him by as much surprise. There’s a single goldenrod plant stuck in their letterbox, presumably from Ronnie’s wife, with a note pinned to it.

“You know that weird flower language, don’t you?”

David shrugs. “Um, vaguely. I could look it up, but I’m pretty sure this one means something like ‘watch out’?”

Patrick sighs and unpins the note. Drawn on in thick black pen is a personified cartoon of a thumb, underneath which is a simple, damning message:

_GAME ON, BREWER._

****

“Who’s to say we can’t start giving gifts early?” Patrick says the next night as they’re sitting up in bed, Patrick reading and David curled into his side half-asleep. “Last year, Jocelyn did that advent thing for you where she gave you a tiny piece of the present every day until Christmas Eve.”

David grimaces, clearly remembering. “Mm, and it left me heaving over the toilet for a week _after_ Christmas Eve,” he says. “If Jesus didn’t die on the cross, I think the idea of Jocelyn one day making turkey donuts and candy cane bagels in his honour would’ve killed him off instead.”

“Still…it gives me an idea.”

David groans, shifting so he can stretch and lie down properly. “Don’t do anything that’ll make me have to go beyond learning the basics of my spreadsheet.”

He rolls over and claps his hands so that the lights turn out, leaving Patrick in the dark. But when he’s sure that David is asleep, he pulls out his laptop quietly and makes a couple of quick searches, navigating his way from opinion articles about the worst Christmas presents possible to the social media feeds of his neighbours to work out some certain _specifics_ he needs to make the gift work.

It doesn’t take long before he finds something perfect. Or completely degenerate, depending on who you ask.

It turns up at the door less than 24 hours later – man, Patrick is going to miss one-day delivery when Amazon finally collapses – and it’s David who picks it up. He shimmies back into the living room, clearly under the allusion that it’s a present for him.

“You’re buying a bit late, aren’t you?” he says, handing it over. “Don’t you get all your shopping done by – oh my _God,_ what the hell is that?”

Patrick smiles as he unwraps the decorative [plate](https://rlv.zcache.com/basset_hound_ugly_christmas_sweater_paper_plate-rb1d8efe5e6824c55bdb7abfc968eebee_zkbhg_200.jpg?rlvnet=1). A horrid gaudy design of tinsel, poinsettias and four basset hounds is plastered on the face, looking altogether like someone who had never heard of Christmas was told to design something based on a stoner’s explanation of the holiday.

David was almost going pale, so Patrick quickly assures him that no, it wasn’t one of his gifts.

“So what _is_ it, then?”

Patrick shrugs. “Ronnie has four basset hounds. And I’m going to drop this off with her right now.”

David picks up the plate with as little contact as he can manage and turns it over in the light. “I know you’re about to tell me that this is one of many disgusting gifts you’re going to get her over the course of the month, so don’t waste your breath.”

“Oh, I’m only just getting started,” Patrick says as he stands up and grabs his coat.

It looks like Ronnie is out when he pulls up at her house. He took a bit of time before he left to wrap the present up meticulously, and he even managed to find a thumbs-up sticker from the toy box they have in the guest room for when Alexis’ kids come to stay.

Patrick adjusts the present by the door so that the big thumb is visible from the end of her drive, then gets away as quickly as he can before anyone sees him.

He’s all ready to gloat about it as he comes through the cottage door, but David is already stood there holding something out to him. The way he’s clamping down hard on his lips and the slight wetness around his eyes tells Patrick that he’s just got done crying with laughter.

“What is this?”

David snorts. “Did you not pass Ronnie on your way home?”

“Wha – Ronnie’s been here? When? Why –”

Patrick takes the box from David’s hands and opens it. It’s a kid’s tool chest, complete with soft plastic screwdrivers and a hammer that squeaks when you hit it. The note sat on top reads _I can help you learn how to use them if you like._

If he weren’t his husband and knew how non-threatening he really is, then David would probably be scared by the face Patrick makes. Instead, he just looks like a toddler about to have a tantrum. Or a pissed-off marshmallow.

“Are you gonna sit and help me find a selection of the absolute worst gifts I can think of?” Patrick says, not moving his eyes from the gift that he looks like he wants to bore a hole in with his gaze.

David stares at him unimpressed. “No. I’m gonna make dinner.”

****

While the anticipation of yet another Patrick-Ronnie feud tires David out at first, he eventually starts to find it amusing that Patrick will either proudly show David his next anti-gift or something equally damning will turn up at their door every other day. After the toolbox, Patrick sends Ronnie a used paintbrush with hardened bristles, so Ronnie shoves five packets of ketchup from the Wobbly Elm through their letterbox that Patrick accidentally stands on with his hiking boot the next morning. Then Ronnie gets a cheap, threadbare, scratchy blanket from the charity shop that smells like mothballs and old person soap, so Patrick gets a chipped, faded collector’s mug from Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee.

Over the rest of the month, while David is trying hard to get Patrick focused on their busy Christmas period at the store, the back-and-forth progresses. On their last practice of the season, Ronnie replaces Patrick’s baseball bat with a fake hollow one that’s impossible to swing. Patrick decides to dig up an old wound, the one that started it all, and cover Ronnie’s front garden in plastic tarp.

It wasn’t funny, then it _was_ funny, but now that it’s got to December 22nd and David is still getting texts from an angry Ronnie threatening never to do business again or having to hose Patrick’s boots down in the yard after some mishap or another, David is decidedly sick of it again.

“Patrick, this is getting ridiculous,” he tries to reason as Patrick sits and tries to map out what he’s going to do for the big finale. “What could you possibly do that would actually leave her speechless? How do you plan to win this?”

David takes one look at the rough map of Ronnie’s house and the bullet-point list of ‘plans’, then promptly decides not to let Patrick answer that question. Before his husband can protest, David swipes the paper and rolls it up.

“Hey! That was –”

“That was your first, failed idea,” David says, bonking Patrick on the head with the tube. “I have a better one.”

After a solid half hour of coaxing, David finally managed to convince Patrick that Ronnie would be far more taken aback if he got her something she actually liked. They spend the next two days putting together the best hamper they can make: a new pair of frictioned worker’s gloves since she’d put a hole in hers not long ago, some of the apricot and cranberry cheeses they’d started selling at the store, some red wine with a portable wine decanter, and some new tools that David had heard her talking about.

The other Brewers and Roses pile into the cottage on Christmas Eve morning in a flurry of bags and boxes of food, so David and Patrick are breathing a sigh of relief when they finally get to escape to the Café that afternoon at five. They’ll be back to collect their family later for hot chocolate and carolling in town, but the Café is already full to capacity for the Secret Santa Exchange without them there.

David strides in confidently and puts his neatly wrapped gift for Jake – a luxury massage kit – in the middle of the room. Patrick is feeling just as confident, right up until he walks into the Café and realises that his hands are empty. And the backseat of the car is empty. And he’s forgotten the gift. And… _fuck._

“David…” Patrick murmurs. He tries to surreptitiously pry his husband away from the conversation he’s having with Twyla.

David shoots him a look and ignores him, but then Patrick gives him their customary I-need-you-to-get-out-of-this-social-situation-now-and-help-me tap on the elbow and David spins around almost immediately.

“What? What is it?”

Patrick clears his throat and leans in. “I forgot it,” he says as quietly as he can.

“Forgot what –” then David’s eyes widen in recognition, and he brings a hand to his mouth to stifle a snort. “Oh, God. This is too good.”

“Ugh, I must have misplaced it when everyone was getting their stuff through the door…” Patrick drops his head in his hands. “How much time do I have to get it back, do you reckon?”

But then Twyla claps her hands together, answering the question for him. “Good afternoon, everybody! Can you all get seated please, then we can start?”

Patrick trudges to a seat and sits down, already frustrated and embarrassed that Ronnie gets the last laugh here. He can’t imagine what she’ll have got for him, but he’s really not looking forward to opening it in front of everyone.

Once everyone has picked up their labelled gift from the middle, Patrick intrigued by the large, thin envelope in his hands, they get to opening. Ray gets Roland a fancy-looking camera, and he's over the moon until he realises that the film is already full from Ray's "test" photos. The unwilling recipient of Jocelyn's advent gift is too busy doubled over the table to open the final present. David eventually settled on getting Jake some beard oil, which he was sure wouldn't come across as suggestive but Jake looks over and winks at him anyway.

Patrick doesn’t dare look at Ronnie, who he can see from his peripheral vision has her arms crossed, as he drags his finger under the tape and reaches his hand inside the wrapping to find –

Oh my God.

“How did she…”

But really, Patrick knows how she did. Because he’s been going on and on about this particular vinyl ever since David bought him his record player for his 35th birthday, and she’s bound to have overheard him at some point. Patrick can’t decide what’s worse, the fact that he forgot her nice present or the fact that they had the same idea, making them fundamentally more similar than he would like.

As soon as he can get the chance, he hops out of his seat to grovel pathetically at her side.

“Listen Ronnie, I _swear_ I left your gift at home, I was just caught up with all the family arriving, and…”

Ronnie’s mouth twists, unimpressed. Her eyebrow quirks. “Mmhm, sure.”

Patrick trails off and looks to David for moral support, but he’s still trying to work out which way up the – scarf? Tote bag? Quilted coat hanger? – _assorted gift-adjacent item_ from Robin is meant to be. When he turns back to Ronnie, she just shakes her head at him and grabs her coat.

When he trudges back to the table, ready to add another tick to his mental Ronnie-Patrick scoreboard, David reminds him that he still has the town’s evening activities to redeem himself. Once again, they make themselves scarce and rush home as fast as they can to collect their family and, more importantly, the hamper.

By the time they get back, the town has congregated around the Christmas tree in front of the motel. It’s been a tradition ever since the first Christmas the Roses celebrated in Schitt’s Creek to meet there and have food, hot drinks, exchange gifts and sing carols. As the Roses and everyone else make their rounds and catch up over a drink, David nudges Patrick towards Ronnie like a parent telling their shy kid to say thank you.

“Told you I wasn’t lying,” he says wryly. He winces as Ronnie opens the hamper, holding her phone flashlight up to it to inspect the contents, and feels everything unravel with relief when she smiles.

“You know what, Brewer? Not bad,” she says.

“No problem. And thanks for the vinyl, I really appreciate it. Honestly, I’m not sure if you knew, but I’ve been trying to hunt that one down for months.”

Patrick winces, and he feels David wince beside him like they both always do when Patrick rambles in front of Ronnie, but to their surprise she just nods.

“They’re a good band. You’ve got taste.”

David quietly backs away, letting himself get sucked into a conversation with Jocelyn as Patrick and Ronnie, in some kind of Christmas miracle, actually manage to sustain a civil conversation. It puts Patrick in a good mood for the rest of the night, and David is surprised to notice a considerable change in his demeanour over the next two days even with the inevitable mood-booster of having their whole family around them at Christmas.

That is, until they’re lying in bed on Boxing Day night and Patrick gets a text.

 **Ronnie:** _Brewer, why is one of my own pairs of pliers in this hamper you gave me?_

Patrick squints at the message for a moment, struggling to switch his brain on in the post-Christmas haze that is settling in to occupy his mind until New Year’s.

“David, what does this mean?”

David reads the text. “Um…do you not remember stealing one of Ronnie’s tools when she was fixing that table leg in the store on December 19th?”

“Oh, God. I do.”

That one had been a low blow, and he wasn't entirely sure what he intended to gain from it, but before he could change his mind and give it back it had been his mom’s birthday the next day so he’d forgotten that he’d even done it. He claps a hand over his forehead.

“I may have slipped it back in while we were making the hamper up,” David says, grimacing in half-apology, half-anticipation for the next stage of Patrick and Ronnie’s damn lifelong saga to begin.

 **Patrick:** _Yeah…that was a misunderstanding. You must have, I don’t know, left it in the store the other week…_

**Ronnie: 😑**

Patrick puts his phone down and sighs. Well, it had felt weird talking normally anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Listen, I'm not bold enough to assume that I would ever be capable of actually writing a satisfying and worthy ending to Patrick and Ronnie's lifelong rivalry. We all know it's never gonna happen, so of course it ends with the promise of future feuds.


End file.
